13
I’m standing outside the Millers’s front door as the sun bakes the back of my neck. I pull on my white T-shirt for some circulation but it insists on sticking to my skin like plastic wrap. I’ve knocked and am waiting to be let in. I can’t make out much through the reflective glass, just a litany of indecipherable shapes. Any second, one of those shadows will be Mrs. Miller and I begin to have the subtle sensation that I’m intruding on something serene.
I step away and admire the auburn brick of the house, squinting up at their second story watchtower window that gives view to the entire countryside. Tommy and I used to play games up there, imagining ourselves kings of the land, keeping watch over our fields, roads and animals, every inch was our endless dominion worth protecting.
“As far as the eye can Cash, as far as the eye can see,” he’d whisper, wide-eyed and imagining. Everything was possible then.
I knock again but to no avail. I can’t help but search through the glass one more time and sure enough, as soon as I put my face near the door, Mrs. Miller brings the thing back with enough speed to make me jump. Ignoring my embarrassment, she says, “Cash! So good to see you, come in, come in. So sorry, I was in the back bringing things in from the garden.”
She’s wearing a classic yellow and white sundress and bright orange gardening gloves that cover both her hands, they have leaves stitched into the fabric. On her head rests a large, opalescent straw hat.
“No worries.”
She lets me in, continuing, “and John isn’t home, unfortunately.”
I close the door behind me and the air conditioning settles on my body like cool heaven, the interior of the home is forever spotless, nearly unlived in, perfect in its upkeep. I take my boots off and she says, “Oh don’t worry about that.”
“Not a problem.”
I know she’s just being kind. If I left my boots on, she’d be cleaning my tracks up the second I left. As we round the corner my hand drifts to the polished wood of the stairwell railing. My mind wanders to the days of my youth, sprinting up these stairs with my pal.
“Bummer though, I know John would sure have loved to see you. He went off as soon as we got back to go take care of one thing or another. It never ends.”
“How was the trip?”
“It was nice, thank you. Sweet of you to ask. It was nice.” And she’s leading me through the kitchen where all of my work took place. “Cash, I just have to say, you did a wonderful job. Really.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t you think so?”
“Yeah, I mean, yeah I like it.”
“So do we. It’s a completely different room now, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, for sure.”
“Should have done it years ago.”
“I know how that goes.”
“Care for a drink? Water? Lemonade? Beer?”
“Uh, well, yeah I guess, um. A beer would be great.”
“Beer it is.”
Her hands wrap around the dark silver doors to the fridge, and she pulls them open. The light breaks through, illuminating her face as she tilts her head slightly to the side. She bends over and looks around for a second. Little beads of sweat slip down her back between her shoulder blades. They slide down into her yellow dress. Her toes are dirty as one foot moves up the back of her other leg. She balances there for a moment, slowly tracing her calf, and humming to herself softly.
“Looks like all we have is Miller Lite.”
“That works just fine.”
“Great.”
She takes one out and as she hands it over to me, she smiles warmly. “Thank you, Amy.” I crack it open. She seems grateful for the company, and perhaps amused by life and the fact that kids become adults. If she were to close her eyes, I’m sure she could picture me young and wild like Tommy, asking for a juice box. Well, that once-little kid has grown up. He’s painted her kitchen and when she hands him a beer, he calls her by name. The metallic coolness feels relieving to the touch as I stand, isolated. I am an island, myself, in Amy’s newly painted home. As the beer hits my mouth it strikes me that I have never been alone with her before. She’s taking some of her vegetables out of a beige woven garden bag and begins to wash them in the sink. The brisk white water runs fluid over her hands as they work, and the dirt is lost forever. There’s something mesmerizing in the action.
“So, what keeps you busy these days, Cash?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Little of this, little of that—” What a dumb thing to say. What does that even mean?
“John said he caught sight of you over at Jimmy’s a week or two ago?”
“Oh yeah? I must have missed him.”
“Think he said he just saw you and Leon going in? Maybe.”
“Yeah, I mean, makes sense,” and the break in conversation is gently accompanied by running water and the sipping of beer. As she washes those vegetables in the windowed sunlight, I’m reminded how undeniably beautiful she is. The light pierces through the glass in front of her face and makes her cheeks red with warmth. I suddenly desire to say stupid, sentimental and brave things to her but instead go for, “And you? John still at the plant?”
“John’s still at the plant.”
“Oh great.”
“He’s saying any day now, any day.”
“Yeah, I’d imagine it’s getting close to that time.”
“But you know how it is. It keeps him busy more than anything.”
“Right.”
“Doesn’t much know what else he’d do with all the time.”
“Right, of course.”
“But things are good. More of the same. No complaints.”
“Yeah.”
I take another drink. The Miller Lite tastes like nectar and gasoline. It’s crisp and cold but sinister in my throat. There’s so much to say but I say none of it. I wish I was drunk and courageous, but I’m not even close to either at the moment. The soft running sound of water continues, and I find it difficult not to watch it cascade over her hands. She’s always had something of an effortless dance to her movements, one of those women who seemed to be gently carried along by a perfect wind. The gracious gravitational forces that surrounded her decades ago were with her even now, though a slight heaviness of spirit had gathered over the years.
Back when Tommy and I would play as kids, Amy would sit on her back porch swing and stare at the sky. I remember watching her then, always wondering just what it was she was dreaming about. She’d sit there and rock back and forth for an hour, eyes searching the clouds. She was a star of a midwestern Hollywood film, pure and perfect and free. God, she really was something.
In the kitchen today, cleaning vegetables, I convince myself she must be doing well enough, but still, if you look closely, you can see that somewhere deep inside, she’s quietly, eternally mourning the loss of something precious. To this day, I doubt she gets a plain waking thought in about anything else without thinking of her son. Tommy’s tragedy was to blame for the small red veins in her eyes, which are probably there to stay.
What evil there is in the world. A familiar chill runs my spine with those reverbs of hatred. Wherever he went, that devil that took Tommy all those years ago, I just hope that he died in pain and in horror. I pray he was swallowed by ants while he cried out for help or was spiked on a branch, pecked slowly to death by crows. The visions make me repulsed, and I rub at my jaw just to settle myself. In the end, I just hoped Tommy killed him and ran off to the forest, forever. I hoped he had made a life out there somewhere, and someday we’d find him at last. I finish my beer and scrunch my wet lips. What was there to say? What was there to say about that ?
“Thank you for the beer, Amy. I think I oughta go.”
“Are you sure, honey?”
“Yeah. I got some work across town.” I don’t, but I’m afraid if I look at her any longer, I’ll either weep all over her newly painted kitchen or tell her I love her. “Well give me a second, let me dry off and get the money.”
“That’s okay.”
“Cash, don’t be silly.”
“No really. It’s no problem. I promise. Call it an early Christmas or somethin.”
She looks at me, confused for a second, but in one more breath I can tell she understands.
God, the relentless guilt that comes to those who keep playing the game, full well knowing the far better soul got the worse hand. It’s so awful I could die.
“I’ll see you soon, Amy. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Thank you, Cash.”
“Say hi to John for me.”
“Of course.”
“And I um—well, alright. I’ll see you.”
Conflicted and lousy, I walk away and feel sick to my stomach.
So many years, and I’m still fucked up about Tommy.